OF A GOLDEN AGE

I cannot praise Chris Jones’s deep, magnificent profile of Roger Ebert (in the new Esquire) enough. It moved me in every familiar way and some I never expected. Ebert’s passion for his life’s work shows in every detail:

Ebert scribbles constantly, his pen digging into page after page, and then he tears the pages out of his notebook and drops them to the floor around him. Maybe twenty or thirty times, the sound of paper being torn from a spiral rises from the aisle seat in the last row.

Jones also cleanses the palate of the notion that Ebert has gone soft in his reviews — Yes, he assigns higher ratings to more movies, but Ebert has explained that he judges movies based on what they’re aiming for, not where they fall in an objective continuum of all moviekind. Jones also makes it clear that Ebert’s changing life of surgeries, illness, and steely resolve has effected if not his taste then his attitude. As in all cases, I support people’s publicly changing opinions as their circumstances change, and I appreciate without bounds anyone who is willing to admit a change of heart.

I thought the Jones piece was the end of it, and then Ebert wrote an equally magnificent response. He is more gracious than can really be believed and it is a suitable end to the story Jones began.

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Jerry Spinelli still captures neurotic youth in bloom better than almost any writer, and has done so for many years, but I’ve found that many of his books lack a solidity and complete package. Like Eggs (reviewed here / here), Smiles to Go features a solid, finely voiced main character surrounded by an odd plot and a lot of one-dimensional secondary characters. Whether the book is worth reading depends on whether you’ll relate to the main character.

Will Tuppence (stupid name alert — there are only six Tuppences listed in the phone book anywhere and they’re all in one city) is an earnest know-it-all with no emotional IQ. He’s a freshman in high school, with both a male and a female best friend and a family from whom he keeps his distance for some reason. He thinks everyone is out to annoy him or drive him crazy, and he has to think very carefully about almost all the everyday emotional experiences in the book.

The specifics of the story are not that important, and they’re symbolic and metaphorical in a way typical of YA fiction. The ending feels a little forced and abrupt but satisfies Will’s little journey.

I don’t know, I don’t know. This review sounds negative but I really did like the book, and Will reminded me of myself as a freshman — going through the motions of growing up and behaving responsibly, but lacking complexity in realms that were a little less concrete. Will is a very smart kid and the book begins with his fixation on the idea of proton death, which seems more important to him than any of the people I know. I hope Spinelli’s lesson here is not that the smart kids shouldn’t be so smart, but rather that our personalities and angles must exist in harmony.

For more on the Cannonball Read, see Pajiba.

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